You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
I live in Ikorodu, Lagos Nigeria; it is one of those places you describe as a slum to the extremely wealthy and as a palace to the extremely poor; it is all a matter of perspective. I stay in the western part of Ikorodu, mainly buildings and shrubs.
I always lived a conservative life and never knew beyond the four walls of my parent’s house. In it, I ran academic programs, failed the University entrance exams, and found myself locked up with a whole year of nothing to do. I enrolled into a Leadership programme. I needed a break from what life was throwing at me and here came a program attached with a community project. Now, I had only been exposed to academic rigours and this seemed to be from another angle entirely. My mentor from the program, Genralkopho Leadership program urged me to go around and look for something to do. He called it ‘something that would touch the lives of others’.
I used to walk down a path to buy groundnuts, I still do. But on this evening, I am walking down the path, heads down when I see a girl. She appears to be age 4 and she is holding some groundnuts too. She greets me in faint English ‘good afternoon ma’. I still don’t know why, probably it was the hijab she wore or the fact that I had never seen her before but I did trace her to her house.
Her name is Hawawu. She has an elder sister and two younger siblings and I did guess right: she doesn’t go to school.
They are people like me; same skin, same eyes, same mouths but different experiences, different exposures hence different responses to life.
Surely, he who is worthy to receive his day and nights is worthy of all else from you.
I decide to organize a class for them. My mum buys me a whiteboard and some board markers; I search the internet for syllabuses and textbooks and pass them on to my dad to print out for me. I talk with my pastor to release the church building to me, classes would be held thrice a week; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. And somehow, I feel lighter; Hawawu would speak ‘good English’ soon. Word of mouth makes our classes get bigger. From teaching three students to six and by some mysterious wind, I find myself facing twenty children. Different classes, different syllabuses, same problem. I begin to hold classes for nursery students, primary students, and secondary students whilst looking for a partner. On some days, I am drained, tired, and worn out. But coming into the class to see pupils waiting for me, calling me; ‘aunty’, ‘teacher’, it just does something to me that gives an inexplicable satisfaction.
Aside from academics, I have to deal with bullying and exclusion amongst the students. Here I am fighting for their inclusion in a school system by bringing the school to them and they exclude themselves. The carving out of a minority starts from such a young age due to unwarranted exposures. My students shut Hawawu out because she was 14 and still in nursery two. Sometimes, it could be because she was a Hausa person. It takes patience to drill to children what acceptance really means. I make sure that the three to four hours I spend with them is both academic and life enlightening. We talk about cheating for grades and fighting, why they aren’t good, why they shouldn’t be done. What is impact if it doesn’t uphold values?
I have come to realize that more than half of the children in my neighbourhood have parents who can’t afford schooling despite having about four different schools in the neighbourhood and my impact is slowly growing from teaching the children to holding money conversations with their parents. Money is a taboo subject over here and more so from an eighteen-year-old teenager. I go around talking to schools, free and paid to see plans to enroll the kids.
Sometimes, I can’t place what drives me; the dissatisfaction I feel whenever I see Hawawu selling rice at the bus stop or the smile on Fatima’s face when I give her a pencil and book. I don’t know but it is worth it.
The COVID- 19 has hit its streak again so schools are closed, gatherings limited and I am wondering how I would gather children who do not have access to the internet to teach without breaking the laws.
It is cheers to the dissatisfaction that keeps me moving.
See first that you deserve to be a giver and an instrument of giving.